After much deliberation, I've decided to make the deadline for game for this season May 2nd... this is a whole extra week, to make sure everyone has every chance to play all their games, so hopefully that will be the case.

There will be a two week registration period/break, then season 3 will start Sunday, the 17th.

Season 2 started on March 01. Originally the idea was to play 7 match series of 7 games within 7 weeks. Now that the deadline is set to May 02 that makes almost 9 weeks! And in many divisions there are only 7 or even 6 players. That sounds like plenty of time.

Maybe too much?

After more than 5 weeks:
- completed: 7 players,
- only one to go: 15 more players,
...
- only one match played: Drake, Zeno.
- not a single game played or scheduled: Baron, John_, Railbandit, wonderbere.

I assume some of you are not planning, maybe never did plan, to play season 2. So if you are dropping out, just announce it right away. And for those that still do want to play their matches, I consider it not very polite towards your opponents to eventually make them stand in line to catch you in the last few days.

two more things:

One thought about registration for season 3:
- I suggest to close registration some days prior to the start of the season, to allow for seeding divisions.
- I suggest to give a short timeframe only for registration, maybe a week. That might help get only registrations from those that really are willing and have the time to play. I suppose some of season 2 registrations, that now seem to drop out, or already did, do not even remember they once registered. So adress this issue, maybe even ask for a personal message or even an email. But at least restrict registration to a short period of time, that is open the thread maybe on May 2 and close it on May 09.

And while it fits, a thought about dropouts:
I suggest to definitly not let them get back easily next season. If not for a very good and unforseen reason (and this does in my opinion not include "I have less time now") they should AT LEAST drop TWO divisions if they want to come back in the next season (that is one more as if relegated), but in my opinion they should be treated like any other new entry, and that is they enter at the bottom two levels only. And if someone drops out a second time, or drops out without ever notifying, they should not be accepted for registration, at least for one season.

Only 1 person tried to contact me to play a match (dea), and I played that one. (Actually Toutoune did I just noticed, but to wrong account)

Bad enough American players have to play at hours convenient to Europeans most of the time, but having to try to organize a match at an inconvenient time is more than I feel like doing.

Last season I had to send multiple messages multiple times to get my matches played. Not gonna do it this time. I posted in the forums under our group. That is more than other people have done, so I figure they should get forfiets not me.

- We now have two weeks left (originally, everyone should have finished by now ). On average, we have one before-end-of-season-quitter per division. Funnily, in the higher divisions this is announced and in the lower divisions they simply don't play. Question to Wildfire: could you officially announce that John, RailBandit and wonderbere will be excluded from further play since they have not started yet?

- Disregarding the above three players, these are the players with most games left to play:

Zeno, Baron, Sookie: 5
Drake, youki, Nomade, Shono: 4

Can these players please get going? We have two weeks left.

- As Colo already pointed out, deadlines should be clear and not be changed after the start of the season. And while we should be hard on quitters, there are always people who have good reasons to quit even though they signed up three weeks prior. I don't want this to lead to divisions of 6 players or less since the luck factor gets too high. Changing starting and deadline dates also make people lose interest and motivation.

In short, part of the problems can be solved by doing the following:

1. Make divisions of 9 players, so if one or two players quit, there is still a decent amount of matches played;

2. To make sure everyone has ample time, give them 1.5 weeks per match;

3. You can't get the league periods clearer then starting the first day of the season and end one week before the next. I know I have done this proposal before but now it might make more sense. You thought it would take too long, but it is hardly longer than it is now and it is much clearer.

- We should take the complaint regarding scheduling problems over the Atlantic serious. I don't think Europeans can demand that Americans/Canadians play all their matches during the week in the afternoon.

I agree some structural changes might be necessary... Larger divisions have downside too.. makes each season longer, which could lead to more quitting if people do poorly at first.

The three people you mentioned haven't been announced because they haven't quit.. they're AWOL.. those that were announced are people that contacted me, or posted in the forum and quit.

While it's pretty safe to assume those players you mentioned aren't playing, since they haven't said, I haven't officially removed them.

I'm not sure what you mean in #3.. are you saying we should have an end date up front? We pretty much did that this time. I think the problem was allowing too much debate, which was probably confusing. That won't happen in the future, hopefully.

Yep, number 3 was unclear. I meant the real calendar seasons. So 21 December, 21 March etcetera. Try this twice and everyone can remember when a season starts and ends.

Wildfire points out a disadvantage of longer seasons

Larger divisions have downside too.. makes each season longer, which could lead to more quitting if people do poorly at first.

Good point. But if this is the only disadvantage, I will gladly accept it. I don't see a good reason to allow for different group sizes at the beginning (apart from the lowest league). They can change by people quitting, but that is something you can hardly influence.

About the mentioned three players: if they haven't contacted anyone so far, I don't think it is really up to them if they will play yet, is it? It is hardly fair towards their opponents to expect them to squeeze their matches against them in the last 1-2 weeks.

I wouldn't critise if I wouldn't care. I do appreciate very much what you're doing. I will take a break next season (family related) but am planning to come back afterwards.

- Not too long seasons, makes people lazy at first ..., I suggest 8 or 9 weeks.
- Set a deadline early, possibly already when registration is up. Tell it as clear as possible, e.g. name a thread "DEADLINE SEASON 3 = July, 20".
- We already have state of the art rules (see ticki) how to rule matches not played. Be strict with the deadline, no exceptions, rule all matches not played until deadline.
- Also punish those that did not finish more than one match: (looking at the concrete case and at the discretion of the TD) make them drop, exclude them for one season, or for a year.
- Allow for registration only for a short time, one week should do. Who ever is not able to post "in" within this week,is probably not able to complete his matches too.

- Concerning division sizes: Fill up to 8 with more promotions,so that upper levels of season 3 start with 8 each.

- I still think, that reducing the levels to A-G or even F instead of the current 8 levels (to H) would make sense. I will eventually come up with a concrete proposal once it is more clear how many people do not complete this season (I see a lot that are far from that: John, wonderbere, Railbandit, Baron, Drake, ...).

Last season I had to send multiple messages multiple times to get my matches played. Not gonna do it this time. I posted in the forums under our group. That is more than other people have done, so I figure they should get forfiets not me.

I like probably most everyone, as well had to write multiple messages multiple times. Posting once your preferred times, is probably not enough. And that is not a matter of time zones. Looking at your divisions table, where 4 of the 5 missing matches are your matches, I for one would at first presume it is your fault.

Last season I had to send multiple messages multiple times to get my matches played. Not gonna do it this time. I posted in the forums under our group. That is more than other people have done, so I figure they should get forfiets not me.

I like probably most everyone, as well had to write multiple messages multiple times. Posting once your preferred times, is probably not enough. And that is not a matter of time zones. Looking at your divisions table, where 4 of the 5 missing matches are your matches, I for one would at first presume it is your fault.

Regards
Colo

When I said I had to send multiple messages, multiple times in the past.. I mean I had to do that to even get 1 response. Not like a back and forth trying to work out a time to play.

As for posting my preferred times, all I was saying is that I did SOMETHING, as compared to other people in my group in regards to trying to set up something with me. Just because they have all played each other, doesn't mean its my fault my games haven't been played... that's just faulty reasoning.

Not too long seasons, makes people lazy at first ..., I suggest 8 or 9 weeks.

In that case you will lose quite a lot of players I think. To fix one evening per week for two months next to other T2R events and everything else life brings us - for me it's tough. But I have not seen anyone else respond to this so I might be the only one.

proposal regarding number of levels

I still think, that reducing the levels to A-G or even F instead of the current 8 levels (to H) would make sense.

Again, I think we should not fix the number of levels. We should fix the structure (I think A-B1/B2-C1/C2 etc is best) and the number of players per division (8 or 9). The number of levels is a function of this (probably 5 or 6).

Well, all considerations placed here worth a look. The problem is that we reached the end of season 2 and there is a significant number of games not played yet. Some players didn't even appear to play, nor they responded to messages and forum postings.

My personal feeling is that most of the people involved in all divisions are considered "frequent" visitors of the lobby, so one fixture per week might do the job. Taking bassie's considerations into account, this might be strict enough for a number of players, even if they're not many.

To summarize:

1. I find the current league arrangement (divisions, number of players) good enough.
2. To help players with stricter personal program, I would suggest to add extra time of two weeks in the current schedule.
3. All arrangements (fixtures per week) are discussed and agreed when league divisions are announced.

Drake, maybe it sounded different to what I ment. Let me try to rephrase: multiple efforts including pms are probably what is necessary to arrange fixtures with most opponents, this should of course be done by all players and more or less be a back and forth. If you did and do not get answers, it is clearly not your fault. You sounded a bit like: well, now I dont send pms any more. Which would be a wrong conclusion, and as you stated is not what you ment, just what it sounded like to me at first. And again it seems my phrasing left room for misunderstanding: if I would only see the table (and not read what you said here in the forum) my first (and not final) presumption would be, that the player who has most games open, while the others have not, is at fault. Like with wonderbere, railbandit ... Which can of course be a wrong impression! Buttom line: would be nice if you get to play most of your matches until the deadline. Hopefully others in your group contact you, reply to you, offer times that are not too much euro-centered.

Bassie, yeah, right you are. Reducing number of levels is a function of structure (how many groups on which levels, you propose 2 starting with B) and number of players. Looking at what we currently got as total number of (active) players and making a reasonable assumption about dropouts/pauses and new entries for season 3, that would result in a reduction of levels. And I hope you did not misunderstand: 8 to 9 weeks for 7 matches, does not mean one day per week, should definitly allow for flexibility. Maybe we should, whatever the total timeframe for a season, include some intermediate goal. Like for example: if the seasons lasts 10 weeks you have to have played 1 match after 4 weeks and 4 (of the 7) after 8 weeks, or something similar.

Now, from theorie and reasoning to practical questions:

5 days till deadline:

John (G1), Railbandit (H1), wonderbere (H2) have not played a single match and in my opinion should be striked by now.

And I hope you did not misunderstand: 8 to 9 weeks for 7 matches, does not mean one day per week, should definitly allow for flexibility.

Our ideas are not far apart Colo, if you consider that I proposed 10-12 week seasons of 8 matches. Most importantly for me is that the seasons should be replicating each year and easily recognisable and not always move with other tournaments and with players not finishing their games, but I think we largely agree on this too. So we hopefully can meet in the middle. What might help too is not only a short register period (you suggested one week) but also a start of the season right after the registering, so anyone can take his/her name off the list till right before the start to avoid disappointments.

another suggestion by Colo

Maybe we should, whatever the total timeframe for a season, include some intermediate goal. Like for example: if the seasons lasts 10 weeks you have to have played 1 match after 4 weeks and 4 (of the 7) after 8 weeks, or something similar.

Very good! I thought of this too but haven't found an easy-to-implement proposal.

update on unplayed matches

Now, from theorie and reasoning to practical questions:

5 days till deadline:

John (G1), Railbandit (H1), wonderbere (H2) have not played a single match and in my opinion should be striked by now.

I think by now we should also assume Baron and drake will drop out since they played only one match each with the deadline three hours away. If we "clean" the list, we have the following players with 2 or more matches remaining:

I want to mention again that relatively many Americans are behind (drake, Baron, Zeno for instance). My general experience is that they don't give me harder times trying to plan a match than Europeans. Can we conclude that not many players are flexible on planning matches? Can Americans/Europeans give their .02 on this?

Edit: Drake is now playing his second match... let's see how far he gets yet.

My general experience is that they don't give me harder times trying to plan a match than Europeans.

Agreed.
I had no problems to schedule my match with Drake this season, in all other tournaments it worked equally well.

bassie schrieb am Sat, 02 May 2009 20:57

Can we conclude that not many players are flexible on planning matches?

I don't think it should be a matter of flexibility (sure, if you agree to play a match immediately when you meet in the lobby, that's fine - but it doesn't work for everyone)
It should be a matter of good manners = answering PMs.
I normally send PM to my opponents offering my possible dates (all of them, not just one preferred).
In NC my opponents used to answer those, picking one of these dates.
In the League I sometimes didn't get any answer, not even 'sorry, none of that works for me, here are my possibilities'.
Maybe because people think, there is soooo much time, so if they don't feel like playing this match at this moment, they don't feel like writing PMs either

I think part of the problem is people having 'holding' accounts when they change their login name for tourneys and such(I know this happened a few time), but partly it's just bad manners.

Some people already do so, but I would encourage anyone having difficulty contacting someone to PM me, both to have a record of the problem (so I know who's difficult) and so I can help attempt to contact the person.

Season 2 started on March 01. Originally the idea was to play 7 match series of 7 games within 7 weeks. Now that the deadline is set to May 02 that makes almost 9 weeks! And in many divisions there are only 7 or even 6 players. That sounds like plenty of time.

Maybe we should all consider returning to Wildfire's original proposal - that is he (or the TD) would provide match-ups for all players to be played each week. We could allow some leeway for those truly unable to meet for various, understandable reasons, but have a definite cut-off point for each match after a certain period of time has expired, i.e. 2 weeks. Exceptions could be made at the TD's discretion.

This would remove the problem occurring in some groups where players have had to squeeze many games into the final week/days and thus over-running the deadline. It might also enable the TD to weed out those who don't turn up at all at a much earlier stage in the proceedings.

Alternatively, why not publish a complete fixture list? Players could aim to play each respective match on or before each proposed time slot.

I remember that when Wildfire originally posted match-ups, players responded in the thread as to whether they could play their prospective opponent at a different, mutually agreed time (earlier or later). But I can't remember anyone asking if they could just ignore the match-ups and just chance upon playing that opponent at some time in the future.

We keep to timings for match-ups in the other various tournaments - why not the league?

You sure got a point there, we obviously have a problem to adress. But: to me - and remembering the discussion early in season 1 this goes for many players - the flexibility of the season contributes much to the charme of the whole idea.

Again, I think some intermediate goals would be a good idea: for example: at least one match after 3 weeks, at least 3 matches after 6 weeks, all matches within the 7/8/9/10 weeks of the season. Whoever does not manage that (and looking at the tables that can easily be spotted) gets warned and pilloried and tared and feathered!